Life On A Cliff

Visiting The Edge Of The Cliff

The next two shots show where Donna caught me out toward the edge of a vertical cliff where this little flower bush was straining against the wind with this breathtaking backdrop. I have little fear of heights but after a long day of cliff edges I was a little played out.

But this one flower bush just had this magnificent backdrop. Plus it is on the edge of an utterly vertical drop. Those two factors made the prone angle perfect for the moment.

Grand Canyon Sunset-East Rim September 2nd 2012

From Navajo Point, one shot out of a few hundred in a time lapse sequence. I just love the foreground bush with the glowing filaments on the flowers. Anyone know what that plant is?

Finding A Better Angle

The Grand Canyon is both the easiest and most difficult subject. The natural beauty is the easy part. Finding a better way to go than all those pros that went before you and all the throngs of tourists with all kinds of cameras is the hard part.

In any case my wife had never been there. So we went and took 3 cameras, the Eos 40D, the 7D and a borrowed Pentax 120mm SLR film camera. (More on film later).

A couple show a rock promontory I hiked out to for some of the more unusual photos.

 This above was shot from the narrow rocks. Got a little unexpected adrenaline as my sense of balance was thrown off by working through the lens.

 Out on the rocks.

Sunday Moon

Simply how it looked tonight, handheld.

Beat The Heat At The Beach

Finally finished this shot sitting in the heat in LA. This illustrates the power of RAW (cr2) photography. One image is just as off the camera, the other is after the conversion and some masking to bring out the tones and colors that had been hidden in the darker areas. This is not HDR, or composted. Just color, contrast and curves adjusted.

As you can see in the larger image if you click, there is too much noise as a result of the shadows being pushed so hard. Next, it's all about Adobe Lightroom to fix the noise and then I'll add the shot to these for comparison. Remember-Click to see the full size images.

Sea Foam & Depth Of Field

Using a 60mm macro lens I got this shot at Emerald Bay California. It was tricky trying to get the shot with the narrow depth of field and protecting my camera from the unforgiving salt water.  Just for fun, I'll add a couple other shots from the same location. Many thanks to a friend who invited me down for the weekend.

Arizona Beauty

Morning Light, Texture, and Green

Sunday Afternoon Hummingbird II AKA Auto ISO Flaws

I grabbed my newly repaired/cleaned/adjusted 7D and set it for speed, as in hummingbird wing speed. I wanted to lock in a fast shutter, so I used "Auto ISO" to keep exposure reasonable. That works great until your shot includes shadow and the camera goes ISO 3200 or higher. Note To Canon-Let us set an upper limit on that feature please... Top shot is not a hummingbird, it shows the noise from the 3200 ISO setting.

But otherwise I had some luck with the fast settings.

A Lucky Moment-Front Yard Hummingbird

I just happened to be out with my long lens. Not the sharpest in the bin, but it got these for me today. The lens cost less than $200,  The Canon 75-200 consumer telephoto.

Late Afternoon Light-Kalanchoe

Just had to grab this shot at my doorstep.